diff --git a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/ports/chapter.sgml b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/ports/chapter.sgml index 79fca0a19c..96115e3c4b 100644 --- a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/ports/chapter.sgml +++ b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/ports/chapter.sgml @@ -1,1579 +1,1578 @@ Installing Applications: Packages and Ports Synopsis ports packages FreeBSD is bundled with a rich collection of system tools as part of the base system. However, there is only so much one can do before needing to install an additional third-party application to get real work done. FreeBSD provides two complementary technologies for installing third party software on your system; the FreeBSD Ports Collection, and binary software packages. Either system may be used to install the newest version of your favorite applications from local media or straight off the network. After reading this chapter, you will know: How to install third-party binary software packages. How to build third-party software from the ports collection. How to remove previously installed packages or ports. Overview of Software Installation If you have used a Unix system before you will know that the typical procedure for installing third party software goes something like this: Download the software, which might be distributed in source code format, or as a binary. Unpack the software from its distribution format (typically a tarball compressed with either &man.compress.1; or &man.gzip.1;). Locate the documentation (perhaps a README file, or some files in a doc/ subdirectory) and read up on how to install the software. If the software was distributed in source format, compile it. This may involve editing a Makefile, or running a configure script, and other work. Test and install the software. And that is only if everything goes well. If you are installing a software package that was not deliberately ported to FreeBSD you may even have to go in and edit the code to make it work properly. Should you want to, you can continue to install software the traditional way with FreeBSD. However, FreeBSD provides two technologies which can save you a lot of effort; packages and ports. At the time of writing, over &os.numports; third party applications have been made available in this way. For any given application, the FreeBSD package for that application is a single file which you must download. The package contains pre-compiled copies of all the commands for the application, as well as any configuration files or documentation. A downloaded package file can be manipulated with FreeBSD package management commands, such as &man.pkg.add.1;, &man.pkg.delete.1;, &man.pkg.info.1;, and so on. Installing a new application can be carried out with a single command. A FreeBSD port for an application is a collection of files designed to automate the process of compiling an application from source code. Remember that there are a number of steps you would normally carry out if you compiled a program yourself (unpacking, patching, compiling, installing). The files that make up a port contain all the necessary information to allow the system to do this for you. You run a handful of simple commands and the source code for the application is automatically downloaded, extracted, patched, compiled, and installed for you. In fact, the ports system can also be used to generate packages which can later be manipulated with pkg_add and the other package management commands that will be introduced shortly. Both packages and ports understand dependencies. Suppose you want to install an application that depends on a specific library being installed. Both the application and the library have been made available as FreeBSD ports and packages. If you use the pkg_add command or the ports system to add the application, both will notice that the library has not been installed, and the commands will install the library first. Given that the two technologies are quite similar, you might be wondering why FreeBSD bothers with both. Packages and ports both have their own strengths, and which one you use will depend on your own preference. Package Benefits A compressed package tarball is typically smaller than the compressed tarball containing the source code for the application. Packages do not require any additional compilation. For large applications, such as Mozilla, KDE, or GNOME this can be important, particularly if you are on a slow system. Packages do not require you to understand the process involved in compiling software on FreeBSD. Ports Benefits Packages are normally compiled with conservative options, because they have to run on the maximum number of systems. By installing from the port, you can tweak the compilation options to (for example) generate code that is specific to a Pentium III or Athlon processor. Some applications have compile time options relating to what they can and cannot do. For example, Apache can be configured with a wide variety of different built-in options. By building from the port you do not have to accept the default options, and can set them yourself. In some cases, multiple packages will exist for the same application to specify certain settings. For example, Ghostscript is available as a ghostscript package and a ghostscript-nox11 package, depending on whether or not you have installed an X11 server. This sort of rough tweaking is possible with packages, but rapidly becomes impossible if an application has more than one or two different compile time options. The licensing conditions of some software distributions forbid binary distribution. They must be distributed as source code. Some people do not trust binary distributions. At least with source code, you can (in theory) read through it and look for potential problems yourself. If you have local patches, you will need the source in order to apply them. Some people like having code around, so they can read it if they get bored, hack it, borrow from it (license permitting, of course), and so on. To keep track of updated ports, subscribe to the &a.ports;. The remainder of this chapter will explain how to use packages and ports to install and manage third party software on FreeBSD. Finding Your Application Before you can install any applications you need to know what you want, and what the application is called. FreeBSD's list of available applications is growing all the time. Fortunately, there are a number of ways to find what you want. The FreeBSD web site maintains an up-to-date searchable list of all the available applications, at http://www.FreeBSD.org/ports/. The name space is divided into categories, and you may either search for an application by name (if you know it), or you can list all the applications available in a category. FreshPorts Dan Langille maintains FreshPorts, at http://www.FreshPorts.org/. FreshPorts tracks changes to the applications in the ports tree as they happen, and allows you to watch one or more ports, and will send you an email when they are updated. FreshMeat If you do not know the name of the application you want, try using a site like FreshMeat (http://www.freshmeat.net/) to find an application, then check back at the FreeBSD site to see if the application has been ported yet. Chern Lee Contributed by Using the Packages System Installing a Package packages installing pkg_add You can use the &man.pkg.add.1; utility to install a FreeBSD software package from a local file or from a server on the network. Downloading a Package and then Installing It Locally &prompt.root; ftp -a ftp2.FreeBSD.org Connected to ftp2.FreeBSD.org. 220 ftp2.FreeBSD.org FTP server (Version 6.00LS) ready. 331 Guest login ok, send your email address as password. 230- 230- This machine is in Vienna, VA, USA, hosted by Verio. 230- Questions? E-mail freebsd@vienna.verio.net. 230- 230- 230 Guest login ok, access restrictions apply. Remote system type is UNIX. Using binary mode to transfer files. ftp> cd /pub/FreeBSD/ports/packages/sysutils/ 250 CWD command successful. ftp> get lsof-4.56.4.tgz local: lsof-4.56.4.tgz remote: lsof-4.56.4.tgz 200 PORT command successful. 150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for 'lsof-4.56.4.tgz' (92375 bytes). 100% |**************************************************| 92375 00:00 ETA 226 Transfer complete. 92375 bytes received in 5.60 seconds (16.11 KB/s) ftp> exit &prompt.root; pkg_add lsof-4.56.4.tgz If you do not have a source of local packages (such as a FreeBSD CDROM set) then it will probably be easier to use the option to &man.pkg.add.1;. This will cause the utility to automatically determine the correct object format and release and then to fetch and install the package from an FTP site. pkg_add &prompt.root; pkg_add -r lsof The example above would download the correct package and add it without any further user intervention. &man.pkg.add.1; uses &man.fetch.3; to download the files, which honours various environment variables, including FTP_PASSIVE_MODE, FTP_PROXY, and FTP_PASSWORD. You may need to set one or more of these if you are behind a firewall, or need to use an FTP/HTTP proxy. See &man.fetch.3; for the complete list. You can also note that in the example above lsof is used instead of lsof-4.56.4. When the remote fetching feature is used, the version number of the package must be removed. &man.pkg.add.1; will automatically fetch the latest version of the application. Package files are distributed in .tgz format. You can find them at ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/packages/, or on the FreeBSD CDROM distribution. Every CD on the FreeBSD 4-CD set (and PowerPak, etc) contains packages in the /packages directory. The layout of the packages is similar to that of the /usr/ports tree. Each category has its own directory, and every package can be found within the All directory. The directory structure of the package system is identical to that of the ports; they work with each other to form the entire package/port system. Deleting a Package pkg_delete packages deleting To remove a previously installed software package, use the &man.pkg.delete.1; utility. &prompt.root; pkg_delete xchat-1.7.1 Managing Packages packages managing &man.pkg.info.1; is a utility that lists and describes the various packages installed. pkg_info &prompt.root; pkg_info cvsup-16.1 A general network file distribution system optimized for CV docbook-1.2 Meta-port for the different versions of the DocBook DTD ... &man.pkg.version.1; is a utility that summarizes the versions of all installed packages. It compares the package version to the current version found in the ports tree. pkg_version &prompt.root; pkg_version cvsup = docbook = ... The symbols in the second column indicate the relative age of the installed version and the version available in the local ports tree. Symbol Meaning = The version of the installed package matches that of the one found in the local ports tree. < The installed version is older then the one available in the ports tree. >The installed version is newer than the one found in the local ports tree. (local ports tree is probably out of date) ?The installed package cannot be found in the ports index. *There are multiple versions of the package. Miscellaneous All package information is stored within the /var/db/pkg directory. The installed file list and descriptions of each package can be found within files in this directory. Using the Ports Collection The following sections provide basic instructions on using the ports collection to install or remove programs from your system. Obtaining the Ports Collection Before you can install ports, you must first obtain the ports collection—which is essentially a set of Makefiles, patches, and description files usually placed in /usr/ports. When installing your FreeBSD system, Sysinstall asked if you would like to install the ports collection. If you chose no, you can follow these instructions to obtain the ports collection. Sysinstall Method This method involves using sysinstall again to manually install the ports collection. As root, run /stand/sysinstall as shown below: &prompt.root; /stand/sysinstall Scroll down and select Configure, press Enter. Scroll down and select Distributions, press Enter. Scroll down to ports, press Space. Scroll up to Exit, press Enter. Select your desired installation media, such as CDROM, FTP, and so on. Follow the menus to exit sysinstall. The alternative method to obtain and keep your ports collection up to date is by using CVSup. Look at the ports CVSup file, /usr/share/examples/cvsup/ports-supfile. See Using CVSup () for more information on using CVSup and the mentioned file. CVSup Method This is a quick method to getting the ports collection using CVSup. If you want to keep your ports tree up to date, or learn more about CVSup, read the previously mentioned sections. Install the net/cvsup port. See CVSup Installation () for more details. As root, copy /usr/share/examples/cvsup/ports-supfile to a new location, such as /root or your home directory. Edit ports-supfile. Change CHANGE_THIS.FreeBSD.org to a CVSup near you. See CVSup Mirrors () for a complete listing of mirror sites. Run cvsup: &prompt.root; cvsup -g -L 2 /root/ports-supfile Running this consequent times at later dates will download all the recent changes to your ports collection. Installing Ports ports installing The first thing that should be explained when it comes to the ports collection is what is actually meant by a skeleton. In a nutshell, a port skeleton is a minimal set of files that tell your FreeBSD system how to cleanly compile and install a program. Each port skeleton includes: A Makefile. The Makefile contains various statements that specify how the application should be compiled and where it should be installed on your system A distinfo file. This file contains information about the files that must be downloaded to build the port, and checksums, to ensure that those files have not been corrupted during the download. A files directory. This directory contains patches to make the program compile and install on your FreeBSD system. Patches are basically small files that specify changes to particular files. They are in plain text format, and basically say Remove line 10 or Change line 26 to this .... Patches are also known as diffs because they are generated by the diff program. This directory may also contain other files used in building the port. A pkg-comment file. This is a one-line description of the program. A pkg-descr file. This is a more detailed, often multiple-line, description of the program. A pkg-plist file. This is a list of all the files that will be installed by the port. It also tells the ports system what files to remove upon deinstallation. Some ports have other files, such as pkg-message. The ports system uses these files to handle special situations. If you want more details on these files, and on ports in general, check out the FreeBSD Porter's Handbook. Now that you have enough background information to know what the ports collection is used for, you are ready to install your first port. There are two ways this can be done, and each is explained below. Before we get into that however, you will need to choose a port to install. There are a few ways to do this, with the easiest method being the ports listing on the FreeBSD web site. You can browse through the ports listed there or use the search function on the site. Each port also includes a description so you can read a bit about each port before deciding to install it. Another method is to use the whereis command. Simply type whereis file, where file is the program you want to install. If it is found on your system, you will be told where it is, like so: &prompt.root; whereis lsof lsof: /usr/ports/sysutils/lsof This tells us that lsof (a system utility) can be found in the /usr/ports/sysutils/lsof directory. Yet another way of finding a particular port is by using the ports collection's built-in search mechanism. To use the search feature, you will need to be in the /usr/ports directory. Once in that directory, run make search name=program-name where program-name is the name of the program you want to find. For example, if you were looking for lsof: &prompt.root; cd /usr/ports &prompt.root; make search name=lsof Port: lsof-4.56.4 Path: /usr/ports/sysutils/lsof Info: Lists information about open files (similar to fstat(1)) Maint: obrien@FreeBSD.org Index: sysutils B-deps: R-deps: The part of the output you want to pay particular attention to is the Path: line, since that tells you where to find it. The other information provided is not needed in order to install the port directly, so it will not be covered here. For more in-depth searching you can also use make search key=string where string is some text to search for. This searches port names, comments, descriptions and dependencies and can be used to find ports which relate to a particular subject if you don't know the name of the program you are looking for. In both of these cases, the search string is case-insensitive. Searching for LSOF will yield the same results as searching for lsof. You must be the root user to install ports. Now that you have found a port you would like to install, you are ready to do the actual installation. The port includes instructions on how to build source code, but no actual source code. You can get the source code from a CDROM or from the Internet. Source code is distributed in whatever manner the software author desires. Frequently this is a tarred and gzipped file, but it might be compressed with some other tool or even uncompressed. The program source code, whatever form it comes in, is called a distfile. You can get the distfile from a CDROM or from the Internet. Installing Ports from a CDROM ports installing from CDROM The FreeBSD Project's official CDROM images no longer include distfiles. They take up a lot of room that is better used by precompiled packages. CDROM products such as the FreeBSD PowerPak do include distfiles, and you can order these sets from a vendor such as the FreeBSD Mall. This section assumes you have such a FreeBSD CDROM set. Place your FreeBSD CDROM in the drive. Mount it on /cdrom. (If you use a different mount point, the install will not work.) To begin, change to the directory for the port you want to install: &prompt.root; cd /usr/ports/sysutils/lsof Once inside the lsof directory, you will see the port skeleton. The next step is to compile (also called build) the port. This is done by simply typing make at the prompt. Once you have done so, you should see something like this: &prompt.root; make >> lsof_4.57D.freebsd.tar.gz doesn't seem to exist in /usr/ports/distfiles/. >> Attempting to fetch from file:/cdrom/ports/distfiles/. ===> Extracting for lsof-4.57 ... [extraction output snipped] ... >> Checksum OK for lsof_4.57D.freebsd.tar.gz. ===> Patching for lsof-4.57 ===> Applying FreeBSD patches for lsof-4.57 ===> Configuring for lsof-4.57 ... [configure output snipped] ... ===> Building for lsof-4.57 ... [compilation output snipped] ... &prompt.root; Take notice that once the compile is complete you are returned to your prompt. The next step is to install the port. In order to install it, you simply need to tack one word onto the make command, and that word is install: &prompt.root; make install ===> Installing for lsof-4.57 ... [installation output snipped] ... ===> Generating temporary packing list ===> Compressing manual pages for lsof-4.57 ===> Registering installation for lsof-4.57 ===> SECURITY NOTE: This port has installed the following binaries which execute with increased privileges. &prompt.root; Once you are returned to your prompt, you should be able to run the application you just installed. Since lsof is a program that runs with increased privileges, a security warning is shown. During the building and installation of ports, you should take heed of any other warnings that may appear. You can save an extra step by just running make install instead of make and make install as two separate steps. Some shells keep a cache of the commands that are available in the directories listed in the PATH environment variable, to speed up lookup operations for the executable file of these commands. If you are using one of these shells, you might have to use the rehash command after installing a port, before the newly installed commands can be used. This is true for both shells that are part of the base-system (such as tcsh) and shells that are available as ports (for instance, - shells/bash and shells/zsh). Please be aware that the licenses of a few ports do not allow for inclusion on the CDROM. This could be because a registration form needs to be filled out before downloading, redistribution is not allowed, and so on. If you wish to install a port not included on the CDROM, you will need to be online in order to do so (see the next section). Installing Ports from the Internet As with the last section, this section makes an assumption that you have a working Internet connection. If you do not, you will need to perform the CDROM installation. Installing a port from the Internet is done exactly the same way as it would be if you were installing from a CDROM. The only difference between the two is that the port distfile is downloaded from the Internet instead of pulled from the CDROM. The steps involved are identical: &prompt.root; make install >> lsof_4.57D.freebsd.tar.gz doesn't seem to exist in /usr/ports/distfiles/. >> Attempting to fetch from ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/distfiles/. Receiving lsof_4.57D.freebsd.tar.gz (439860 bytes): 100% 439860 bytes transferred in 18.0 seconds (23.90 kBps) ===> Extracting for lsof-4.57 ... [extraction output snipped] ... >> Checksum OK for lsof_4.57D.freebsd.tar.gz. ===> Patching for lsof-4.57 ===> Applying FreeBSD patches for lsof-4.57 ===> Configuring for lsof-4.57 ... [configure output snipped] ... ===> Building for lsof-4.57 ... [compilation output snipped] ... ===> Installing for lsof-4.57 ... [installation output snipped] ... ===> Generating temporary packing list ===> Compressing manual pages for lsof-4.57 ===> Registering installation for lsof-4.57 ===> SECURITY NOTE: This port has installed the following binaries which execute with increased privileges. &prompt.root; As you can see, the only difference is the line that tells you where the system is fetching the port from. The ports system uses &man.fetch.1; to download the files, which honours various environment variables, including FTP_PASSIVE_MODE, FTP_PROXY, and FTP_PASSWORD. You may need to set one or more of these if you are behind a firewall, or need to use an FTP/HTTP proxy. See &man.fetch.3; for the complete list. Removing Installed Ports ports removing Now that you know how to install ports, you are probably wondering how to remove them, just in case you install one and later on you decide that you installed the wrong port. We will remove our previous example (which was lsof for those of you not paying attention). As with installing ports, the first thing you must do is change to the port directory, /usr/ports/sysutils/lsof. After you change directories, you are ready to uninstall lsof. This is done with the make deinstall command: &prompt.root; cd /usr/ports/sysutils/lsof &prompt.root; make deinstall ===> Deinstalling for lsof-4.57 That was easy enough. You have removed lsof from your system. If you would like to reinstall it, you can do so by running make reinstall from the /usr/ports/sysutils/lsof directory. The make deinstall and make reinstall sequence does not work once you have run make clean. If you want to deinstall a port after cleaning, use pkg_delete as discussed in the Packages section of the Handbook. Post-installation activities After installing a new application you will normally want to read any documentation it may have included, edit any configuration files that are required, ensure that the application starts at boot time (if it is a daemon), and so on. The exact steps you need to take to configure each application will obviously be different. However, if you have just installed a new application and are wondering What now? these tips might help. Use &man.pkg.info.1; to find out which files were installed, and where they were installed to. For example, if you have just installed FooPackage version 1.0.0, then this command &prompt.root; pkg_info -L foopackage-1.0.0 | less will show all the files installed by the package. Pay special attention to files in man/ directories, which will be manual pages, etc/ directories, which will be configuration files, and doc/, which will be more comprehensive documentation. If you are not sure which version of the application was just installed, a command like this &prompt.root; pkg_info | grep foopackage will find all the installed packages that have foopackage in the package name. Replace foopackage in your commandline as necessary. Once you have identified where the application's manual pages have been installed, review them using &man.man.1;. Similarly, look over the sample configuration files, and any additional documentation that may have been provided. If the application has a web site, check it for additional documentation, frequently asked question files, and so forth. If you are not sure of the web site address it may be listed in the output from &prompt.root; pkg_info foopackage-1.0.0 will often include a WWW: line with the URL of the application's web site. Troubleshooting The following sections cover some of the more frequently asked questions about the ports collection and some basic troubleshooting techniques, and what do to if a port is broken. Some Questions and Answers I thought this was going to be a discussion about modems??! Ah, you must be thinking of the serial ports on the back of your computer. We are using port here to mean the result of porting a program from one version of Unix to another. What is a patch? A patch is a small file that specifies how to go from one version of a file to another. It contains plain text, and basically says things like delete line 23, add these two lines after line 468, or change line 197 to this. They are also known as diffs because they are generated by the diff program. tarball What is all this about tarballs? It is a file ending in .tar, or with variations such as .tar.gz, .tar.Z, .tar.bz2, and even .tgz. Basically, it is a directory tree that has been archived into a single file (.tar) and optionally compressed (.gz). This technique was originally used for Tape ARchives (hence the name tar), but it is a widely used way of distributing program source code around the Internet. You can see what files are in them, or even extract them yourself by using the standard Unix tar program, which comes with the base FreeBSD system, like this: &prompt.user; tar tvzf foobar.tar.gz &prompt.user; tar xzvf foobar.tar.gz &prompt.user; tar tvf foobar.tar &prompt.user; tar xvf foobar.tar checksum And a checksum? It is a number generated by adding up all the data in the file you want to check. If any of the characters change, the checksum will no longer be equal to the total, so a simple comparison will allow you to spot the difference. I did what you said for compiling ports from a CDROM and it worked great until I tried to install the kermit port. &prompt.root; make install >> cku190.tar.gz doesn't seem to exist on this system. >> Attempting to fetch from ftp://kermit.columbia.edu/kermit/archives/. Why can it not be found? Have I got a dud CDROM? As explained in the compiling ports from CDROM section, some ports cannot be put on the CDROM set due to licensing restrictions. Kermit is an example of that. The licensing terms for kermit do not allow us to put the tarball for it on the CDROM, so you will have to fetch it by hand—sorry! The reason why you got all those error messages was because you were not connected to the Internet at the time. Once you have downloaded it from any of the MASTER_SITES (listed in the Makefile), you can restart the install process. I did that, but when I tried to put it into /usr/ports/distfiles I got some error about not having permission. The ports mechanism will download distribution tarballs into /usr/ports/distfiles, but many system administrators will symlink this directory to a remote file server or local read-only CDROM media. If this is the case, then you should specify a different directory to be used for storing distfiles with the following command: &prompt.root; make DISTDIR=/local/dir/with/write/permission install Does the ports scheme only work if you have everything in /usr/ports? My system administrator says I must put everything under /u/people/guests/wurzburger, but it does not seem to work. You can use the PORTSDIR and PREFIX variables to tell the ports mechanism to use different directories. For instance, &prompt.root; make PORTSDIR=/u/people/guests/wurzburger/ports install will compile the port in /u/people/guests/wurzburger/ports and install everything under /usr/local. &prompt.root; make PREFIX=/u/people/guests/wurzburger/local install will compile it in /usr/ports and install it in /u/people/guests/wurzburger/local. And of course, &prompt.root; make PORTSDIR=../ports PREFIX=../local install will combine the two (it is too long to write fully on the page, but it should give you the general idea). imake Some ports that use &man.imake.1; (a part of the X Windows System) do not work well with PREFIX, and will insist on installing under /usr/X11R6. Similarly, some Perl ports ignore PREFIX and install in the Perl tree. Making these ports respect PREFIX is a difficult or impossible job. If you do not fancy typing all that in every time you install a port, it is a good idea to put these variables into your environment. Read the manual page for your shell for instructions on doing so. I do not have a FreeBSD CDROM, but I would like to have all the tarballs handy on my system so I do not have to wait for a download every time I install a port. Is there any way to get them all at once? To get every single tarball for the ports collection, do: &prompt.root; cd /usr/ports &prompt.root; make fetch For all the tarballs for a single ports directory, do: &prompt.root; cd /usr/ports/directory &prompt.root; make fetch and for just one port—well, you have probably guessed already. I know it is probably faster to fetch the tarballs from one of the FreeBSD mirror sites close by. Is there any way to tell the port to fetch them from servers other than the ones listed in the MASTER_SITES? Yes. If you know, for example, that ftp.FreeBSD.org is much closer to you than the sites listed in MASTER_SITES, do as follows: &prompt.root; cd /usr/ports/directory &prompt.root; make MASTER_SITE_OVERRIDE= \ ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/distfiles/ fetch I want to know what files make is going to need before it tries to pull them down. make fetch-list will display a list of the files needed for a port. Is there any way to stop the port from compiling? I want to do some hacking on the source before I install it, but it is a bit tiresome to watch it and hit Ctrl C every time. Doing make extract will stop it after it has fetched and extracted the source code. I am trying to make my own port and I want to be able to stop it compiling until I have had a chance to see if my patches worked properly. Is there something like make extract, but for patches? Yes, make patch is what you want. You will probably find the PATCH_DEBUG option useful as well. And by the way, thank you for your efforts! I have heard that some compiler options can cause bugs. Is this true? How can I make sure that I compile ports with the right settings? Yes, with version 2.6.3 of gcc (the version shipped with FreeBSD 2.1.0 and 2.1.5), the option could result in buggy code unless you used the option as well. (Most of the ports do not use ). You should be able to specify the compiler options used by something like: &prompt.root; make CFLAGS='-O2 -fno-strength-reduce' install or by editing /etc/make.conf, but unfortunately not all ports respect this. The surest way is to do make configure, then go into the source directory and inspect the Makefiles by hand, but this can get tedious if the source has lots of sub-directories, each with their own Makefiles. The default FreeBSD compiler options are quite conservative, so if you have not changed them you should not have any problems. There are so many ports it is hard to find the one I want. Is there a list anywhere of what ports are available? Look in the INDEX file in /usr/ports. If you would like to search the ports collection for a keyword, you can do that too. For example, you can find ports relevant to the LISP programming language using: &prompt.user; cd /usr/ports &prompt.user; make search key=lisp I went to install the foo port but the system suddenly stopped compiling it and starting compiling the bar port. What is going on? The foo port needs something that is supplied with bar — for instance, if foo uses graphics, bar might have a library with useful graphics processing routines. Or bar might be a tool that is needed to compile the foo port. I installed the grizzle program from the ports and frankly it is a complete waste of disk space. I want to delete it but I do not know where it put all the files. Any clues? No problem, just type: &prompt.root; pkg_delete grizzle-6.5 Alternatively, you can type: &prompt.root; cd /usr/ports/somewhere/grizzle &prompt.root; make deinstall Hang on a minute, you have to know the version number to use that command. You do not seriously expect me to remember that, do you? Not at all, you can find it out by doing: &prompt.root; pkg_info -I 'grizzle*' Information for grizzle-6.5: grizzle-6.5 - the combined piano tutorial, LOGO interpreter and shoot 'em up arcade game. The version number can also be found using the pkg_info or by typing: ls /var/db/pkg Talking of disk space, the ports directory seems to be taking up an awful lot of room. Is it safe to go in there and delete things? Yes, if you have installed the program and are fairly certain you will not need the source again, there is no point in keeping it hanging around. The surest way to do this is: &prompt.root; cd /usr/ports &prompt.root; make clean which will go through all the ports subdirectories and delete everything except the skeletons for each port. It is possible to achieve the same effect without recursively calling each Makefile. For example, you can delete all of the work/ subdirectories directly with the following command: &prompt.root; find /usr/ports -depth -name work -exec rm -rf {} \; I tried that and it still left all those tarballs or whatever you called them in the distfiles directory. Can I delete those as well? Yes, if you are sure you have finished with them, those can go as well. They can be removed manually, or by using make distclean. I like having lots and lots of programs to play with. Is there any way of installing all the ports in one go? Just do: &prompt.root; cd /usr/ports &prompt.root; make install Be careful, as some ports may install files with the same name. If you install two graphics ports and they both install /usr/local/bin/plot then you will obviously have problems. OK, I tried that, but I thought it would take a very long time so I went to bed and left it to get on with it. When I looked at the computer this morning, it had only done three and a half ports. Did something go wrong? No, the problem is that some of the ports need to ask you questions that we cannot answer for you (e.g., Do you want to print on A4 or US letter sized paper?) and they need to have someone on hand to answer them. I really do not want to spend all day staring at the monitor. Any better ideas? OK, do this before you go to bed/work/the local park: &prompt.root; cd /usr/ports &prompt.root; make -DBATCH install This will install every port that does not require user input. Then, when you come back, do: &prompt.root; cd /usr/ports &prompt.root; make -DINTERACTIVE install to finish the job. At work, we are using frobble, which is in your ports collection, but we have altered it quite a bit to get it to do what we need. Is there any way of making our own packages, so we can distribute it more easily around our sites? No problem, assuming you know how to make patches for your changes: &prompt.root; cd /usr/ports/somewhere/frobble &prompt.root; make extract &prompt.root; cd work/frobble-2.8 [Apply your patches] &prompt.root; cd ../.. &prompt.root; make package This ports stuff is really clever. I am desperate to find out how you did it. What is the secret? Nothing secret about it at all, just look at the bsd.port.mk and bsd.port.subdir.mk files in /usr/ports/Mk/. (Readers with an aversion to intricate shell-scripts are advised not to look at the files in this directory.) Help! This Port Is Broken! If you come across a port that does not work for you, there are a few things you can do, including: Fix it! The Porter's Handbook includes detailed information on the "Ports" infrastructure so that you can fix the occasional broken port or even submit your own! Gripe—by email only! Send email to the maintainer of the port first. Type make maintainer or read the Makefile to find the maintainer's email address. Remember to include the name and version of the port (send the $FreeBSD: line from the Makefile) and the output leading up to the error when you email the maintainer. If you do not get a response from the maintainer, you can use send-pr to submit a bug report. Grab the package from an ftp site near you. The master package collection is on ftp.FreeBSD.org in the packages directory, but be sure to check your local mirror first! These are more likely to work than trying to compile from source and are a lot faster as well. Use the &man.pkg.add.1; program to install the package on your system.